He Who Lays Up Treasure For Himself . . . Is Not Rich In God'

In the mansion they abandoned were found 5,400 women's shoes, 68 pairs of gloves and many priceless items. The couple are reputed to possess property and money running into the billions of dollars. All that reminds me of this parable by Jesus:

The agricultural pursuits of a rich man were so successful that his barns could no longer contain all his goods. So he said to himself: "I will do this: I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And Iwill say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.' "

But God did not look upon the man with approval, for He announced, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." (Luke 12).

What was included in the rich man's "ample goods?" Did his wife have thousands of pairs of sandals? Did she have many more gowns than all the other women in the town? Did the farmer have more barns than all the other farmers? Were there hundreds of horses and cattle in his fields? Could he and his wife not have been able to survive with just a little less?

A man called Beaujean, who lived in the 18th Century in France, was extremely wealthy. Historian Miriam Beard said this of him: "He owned amazing gardens but he was too fat to walk in them . . . He had countless splendid bedrooms and suffered from insomnia . . . A monstrous, bald, bloated, old man in a bed sculptured and painted to resemble a gilded basket of roses." Could he not have done with just a little less of the mammon that ruined his life?

Now, wealth in itself need not be the downfall of men and women. Jesus never implied that money alone was the root of all evil. He said that the rich man was not "rich toward God." Lance Morrow wrote this of Marcos: "He turned Christianity upside down. He took nourishment from the mouths of the poor and transformed it into his treasure on Earth."

But Marcos and his wife considered themselves quite religious. He contemplated suicide but changed his mind when he remembered that he was of the Roman Catholic faith. His wife considered he and her as "pious people," pointing out that they had a prayer room in their palace.

It is one thing for people to amas more than they need to lead a decent life, but it is quite a different matter when people become obscenely wealthy at the expense of the less fortunate. To what extent can a so-called public servant become extremely affluent at public expense?

William F. Buckley Jr. wrote, "Why should anyone bother to become president if not to become rich? But a discreet few million is one thing." What Marcos accumulated, according to Buckley, was "the equivalent of an American president stealing $1.4 trillion."

Gone are the good old days when a man born in a log cabin can become president of the United States. He can, only if he is astute enough to amass the necessary millions to pay his campaign expenses. So if it costs a man, say, a few million to get into office, should he not be expected to receive the equivalent, and more, in return? How else can we ever get another president of the United States if the prize is not high enough?

The Bible says that rulers are ordained by God to serve the people. That is, to promote law and order and ensure the domestic tranquility. Well and good. They are to be what they are usually called, "public servants." But they are sometimes more self-serving than public-serving. The expressions "public servant" has unfortunately become a misnomer for public parasite, in some instances.

Throughout history, the king has always been expected to live in a palace, but when the lot of those who live in cottages becomes intolerable, they rise up and depose the king. Revolutions are fought for economic reasons.

Again, let us be reminded that Jesus said our lives do not depend upon the quantity of our possessions but upon the quality of the possessor. For good reasons, the Word of God warns us about the danger of falling in love with money.